


The Strength of Memories

by amyfortuna



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Elemmírë/Lalwen (mentioned), Fingon/Maedhros (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, Journey Across Helcaraxë, Memory Magic, Music as Power - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 17:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12370626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: In the vast cold danger and fear of the Helcaraxë, Fingon discovers a source of warmth.





	The Strength of Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).



Time is meaningless without being measured. All the Noldorin devices for counting hours and days were impossible in the midst of the Ice. Some of them relied on the presence of the Trees and had failed when the Trees were put out. Others needed to be kept in relatively mild, dry temperatures, and cracked not long after they arrived in cold, stormy Araman. Still others were impractical to bring, or had been abandoned early. A few people, perhaps, carried hourglasses, but those could only measure small periods of time, and could not tell anyone how long they had been travelling in the vast frozen expanse of the Helcaraxë. 

It had been years for all they knew. Fingon turned his face up to the sky, pondering the slow dance of the stars, wondering if anyone had ever bothered trying to count time using the stars themselves, and realised almost immediately that if anyone had, it was Fëanor and his sons, who never shared their methods. Swift on the heels of that realisation came another: the anger he was accustomed to feeling well up inside him when he thought of Araman's cold betrayal was gone, replaced with numbness. He felt nothing for any of them now. 

The stars blazed overhead. 

When the skies were clear, they shone bright, almost enough to illuminate the proper paths that they should take through the trackless waste. Every single one of the Noldor were now experts at telling good ice from bad even in the dim half-light, the faintest hint of blue under the frozen white enough to make them draw back and try another route. As one of the leaders at the head of the formation, alongside his father, and his cousins Finrod and Artanis, Fingon had to ensure the route was safe not only for his own feet, but for the thousands that would follow after in his footsteps. 

The slow procession of Exiles passed him by, shuffling and sliding along the slippery bits of ice. The surface grew slick with passing feet after a time, leading to slips and falls in the wet slush over the top of clear ice below. Getting wet in such cold could mean death, so everyone had adopted a kind of shuffling gait, inching forward, knees bent. 

Among the crowd, Fingon spotted the golden head of his niece Idril, her bright hair peeking out from the furs she was wrapped in. She was one of the youngest on the journey, having celebrated her fiftieth begetting day only a few days before the fateful day when the Trees were destroyed. 

Most of those with young children had stayed behind. In a few cases, there had been painful sunderings of family when one parent decided to go and the other decided to stay, as was the case with Fingon's own father and mother. Little Orodreth, son of Angrod and Edhellos, was the only true child Fingon could recall having seen, and he was in his early thirties, young, but no longer a babe in arms. 

In the darkness under the stars, Fingon watched every step, counting the people as they passed, fearful that this march would see fewer than the last. Every time the host moved, more people were left behind to freeze or starve, some of them weakened by the long journey they had already undergone, some of them just without the will to carry on. 

And some of them dying in tragic accidents. The Ice could break at any moment. It was piled up high in places and could come down far too easily. No one shouted commands, not in this place, for fear of triggering a fall. Instead, orders and instructions were passed back via whispers from one person to the next. Likewise, no one hurried. Where you set your foot was of the utmost importance. If you were careless even for one second, you could die.

When the march stopped, what must have been many hours later, the host spread out, trailing far across the ice to huddle in tents and eat what little food they had remaining. At times hunters would go out, especially if the signs of life in the wasteland were good, and then there would be meat or fish, eaten raw. There were no fires to cook on, for there was no wood to burn, and no place that was no ice. Fingon had eaten things he would have scorned before, had swallowed them without flinching to set an example for Idril. 

At the end of the procession, his aunt Lalwen marched as a rear guard. He could see her now in the distance, her face that was always full of laughter and smiles in Valinor slowly setting down into a grim, determined mask. 

"Aunt," he said, as she caught up with him, "how fare the people today? Is there anyone to go back for?"

"No," Lalwen said. "We left three behind, but they were too near death, and you cannot go back for them. They won't have survived." Her face held that utter calm of despair. It was the face of one who has seen too much woe to comprehend. 

"Will it never end?" Fingon said, for the moment giving in to the call of despair himself. It was easy, out here, to believe they were truly forgotten and condemned, that they would only suffer and die. 

Lalwen shook her head. "It cannot last forever. I keep telling myself that. The Ice will come to an end. But every time we march, I try and fail to remember something else -- the taste of strawberries, the smell of roses, the feeling of Elemmírë's hand in mine. Once I have forgotten everything good in the world, it will not matter if the Ice doesn't end."

Fingon took a deep breath, reaching down inside himself, and pulled out a memory, as warming as it was painful: his arms around Maedhros as they lay together on a blanket by the river long ago. Their love was new and bright then, and under Laurelin's light they were warm and safe. Everything that would tear them apart and break his heart was still in the future, still far away. 

Softly, under his breath, he began to sing, and after a moment, Lalwen joined him, the light of her own memory bringing a smile back to her face. They walked along together at the end of a long procession, forward into the future, carried onward by the strength of memories.


End file.
